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A: Sophrosyne is a sensual, intellectual novel that examines desire and self-restraint in a digital age. On one level, the book is a cruel but lush exploration of the mother-son relationship; on another, it’s a meditation on contemporary society, examining how ‘self-restraint’ might help us comprehend ourselves in a world that’s radically changing. Readers are brought inside the tangled mind of Alex, a 21-year-old philosophy student who’s trying to define sophrosyne — the Socratic virtue that’s often (inadequately) translated as ‘self-control.’ Alex’s voice is insistent, propulsive, infused by loss and longing; the language is idiosyncratic and oddly rhythmic, leading the reader to sense a betrayal that can’t be spoken. All we can do is listen to Alex’s thoughts, which he directs toward his mother, an absent ‘you’ who haunts the novel — a belly-dancer whose stage name is Sophrosyne.

Q: Why did you decide to write this book?

A: Well, I didn’t decide to write this book: when I started the manuscript five years ago, I had no idea what the final outcome would be! This novel is far more intense and erotic than I’d anticipated, with suggestions and seductions that arose from the characters’ interrelations. In fact, I’d often thrust myself out of a writing session, sitting back in my chair to wonder where the writing came from! I’ve never undergone such a weird process with a book. I think that’s because I was riding along the limits of my knowledge — into a realm of pure thought — trying to understand who we are, as humans, in a world where God is absent, technology is omnipresent, and the global environment is in collapse.

Q: How did you learn about the sophrosyne concept?

A: In the months before I start writing a book, I tend to read a lot of philosophy. A few years ago, I picked up an old copy of Plato’s Early Socratic Dialogues at a second-hand store. It was a classic Penguin edition, with black binding and water-stains on the back cover. I was sitting in the aisle at the bookstore, flipping through the pages, when I came across a dialogue called “Charmides.” In this small vignette, Socrates stands at the gates of a wrestling school, discussing the virtue of sophrosyne. The dialogue is a tidy morsel of philosophy, but it’s also a bawdy short story of men discussing power, appetite, desire and ethics. I was immediately intrigued — not only by the concept, but also by the fact that sophrosyne had completely disappeared from contemporary thought. I mean, this is one of only four Socratic virtues, yet we don’t even have a word for it? This was a topic worth exploring!

Q: What is the concept?

A: Sophrosyne is a beautiful, vital idea whose typical translation fails to convey its lusciousness and timely importance. Sophrosyne is usually translated as self-control or self-restraint, words which elicit the sense that the mind is reining in the body, denying its urges while acting from a sense of righteousness or fear. That isn’t what Socrates meant; Socrates wasn’t a guy who feared much — certainly not desire! The concept, instead, concerns the ways we mediate our animal-body with our conscious mind. This is what it means to be human: this gorgeous, painful contradiction whereby we move through the world as embodiments of a questioning, conscious, ethical mind. But I still haven’t answered your question! (And neither did Socrates, despite his devilish dialogue!) What is sophrosyne? I won’t reply with a straight, flat definition, because that type of language can’t convey the fullness of the word. And that’s the purpose of language, really: to communicate an internal understanding beyond the breach that separates our minds and bodies. So I’ll answer in this way: sophrosyne contains a sense of the stillness that comes when we feel our fullest desire — not denying, not restricting — but also not needing to react with compulsion, as if we were ruled by our every appetite. No, in a state of sophrosyne we can hold our desire, feel it filling us, respond to our world from a place of knowing. Sophrosyne is not the punitive, moralistic denial of desire. Sophrosyne is a mature, potent sense of ourselves as desiring creatures graced with a conscious mind. Sophrosyne is the means by which we might move forward in a digital world — a world which bombards us with constant stimuli, demanding reactions before we can even absorb the temptation, or ask who we are in relation to our appetites, our ethics, and the object that lures us.

Q: Is there anything else you’d like readers to know about your book?

A: Although the book might sound heady, it’s actually quite sensual. I like combining the two. You can go deeper into both when they’re connected by exquisite tension.

Marianne Apostolides is the author of five books which have been translated into three languages; she’s also a recipient of the Chalmers Arts Fellowship. For more information, see marianne-apostolides.com. Apostolides will be reading from Sophrosyne on February 11: writersfest.bc.ca/events/incite.

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Author Q&A: Sensual novel examines self-restraint in a digital age

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